The Great Gatsby

I just finished re-reading this book for the third time. I was motivated to read it again in time to see the movie (I'm a firm believer in reading the book before watching the film).

I was curious how it would hold up. My first time reading it (sometime for fun in middle school), I remember finding the story interesting but not especially memorable. Then we had to read it in junior year of high school, and I really fell in love with it. I loved the descriptive prose so much. In fact, most of what I remembered from that book (before re-reading it) was images: Shimmering moonlight and sparkling guests at Gatsby's parties; Gatsby floating in the pool after he's been shot.

I couldn't remember much about the book, honestly, other than the ending, and the fact that Daisy is attractive and Gatsby is in love with her. So it was nice to revisit the story, and remember all the more minor characters (Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim).

Also, I had forgotten (or maybe I never realized) how funny the story is. The descriptions of the drunken guests made me laugh out loud several times. The descriptions of the parties were perfect; I felt excitement while I was reading it, as if I was actually there, and found myself yearning to return to a country where parties like that are actually possible (not that I'd ever be privileged enough to attend one). Parties like Gatsby's would NEVER exist in Indonesia:

"The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names.

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful world. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. "
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In this third reading, also I found myself to be less sympathetic towards Gatsby's character; it seemed to me that Gatsby never actually fell in love with Daisy; he merely fell in love with the easy, wealthy lifestyle she was born into and she took for granted. So the fact that he doesn't "get" Daisy in the end bothered me less this time than it did in high school.

Finally, I forgot that it is the last line of the book, rather than the first, which is most famous: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

In conclusion (this post is sounding more and more like a school book report), I still admire Fizgerald's writing; his descriptions are uniquely precise and elegant. The story is simple and a little trite, but it is (mostly) believable, and I don't think the plot is the reason people continue to read this book. It's interesting that Nick Carraway (the narrator) turns 30 during the course of the book, and Fitzgerald himself was 29 when he wrote it. As a 28-year-old, it seems I should have the deepest understanding of the material right now. I hope to read it again, maybe in another 10 or 20 years, and see how my perspective on the book has evolved.

By the way, I'm hoping to see Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of the book this week. If I have a strong enough response to it (basically, if I find it really bad or really good), I'll try to write a follow up to this book review.